Learning to thrive in the Bog of Eternal Stench

How the arrival fallacy can set you up for post-achievement letdown

A visual representation of my life as an aspiring memoir author.

Audio version of this post (read by me):

To make sense of the impact of my mother’s mental illness on my own wellbeing, I spent years writing, going to therapy, and reading lots of self-help books. I also indulged in “ecotherapy,” by making sure to spend time outdoors, which has always been my spiritual zone.

This process culminated in a book manuscript, tentatively titled How to Heal Your Cactus, which I’m in the early stages of trying to get published. (For my readers who are not in the writing biz: This means sending out queries to literary agents, and hoping one of them responds. This takes weeks to months—if they respond at all. It’s not unlike applying for a job, with even slower turnaround times.)

Lately it’s really starting to dawn on me how intense and prolonged this part of the process is going to be—so much so that I keep visualizing myself in the Bog of Eternal Stench, from the film Labyrinth. I want to rush across the burping mud, but that’s just now how it works. The gatekeeping means I have to linger, and it’s not pleasant.

The arrival fallacy awaits

I’m also trying to keep another reality front of mind, too: If I do make it across (my book in bookstores!!!), I can celebrate, but not for long.

As author

Sara Petersen

wryly explains in Some Truths About Writing a Book:

“At a writing conference 5ish years ago, I remember a distinguished author (of multiple books) telling a table full of aspiring authors (of which I was one) that he used to think he’d feel like he’d “made it” after he published his first book, but that he simply started chasing different points of affirmation and validation, and I remember composing my face to look as though I understood his point, but privately thinking to myself, “Lol if I ever get to publish a book I’ll KNOW I’ve made it!”

A week after the book came out, I felt curiously empty and remembered this conversation against my will.”

Yep! Just when you think you can declare “I’ve arrived!,” you hear the gurgles of another bog just across the way.

In wonky psychotherapy terms, this sinking feeling is known as the arrival fallacy. Coined by organizational psychologist Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, it’s the false belief that achieving a big goal will bring long-term happiness and life satisfaction.

I know about this risk. I’ve heard several accomplished artists discuss their own dawning awareness of the arrival fallacy. And yet. And yet. And yet I still get my hopes up that there’s an end in sight, or at least a life ring. Lately, it’s every time I open my email, hoping I’ve received a note from an agent who wants to read my manuscript or an acceptance letter from an all-expenses-paid workshop of my dreams.

If I don’t check in with myself about this constant yearning of mine, the waiting becomes so agonizing I start to contemplate the stench simmering below. Maybe it’s better to jump in and swim back the way I came? Granted, I’ll never lose the funk, but at least I’ll be on dry land?

Floating into less tainted waters

Last week, I got a painful look at my self-imposed agony when I cashed in a gift certificate for a “float spa” experience (thank you, dear husband!). For a solid hour, I floated in ten inches of very salty (but odorless) water in an orb-shaped white plastic tank with soothing LED lights.

It was weird and heavenly, except for nagging tension in my neck and upper back. The spa staff warned me about this — how any chronic pain would be more noticeable with so few distractions. By the end of the session, the knots had loosened a bit, and by the time I got in my car, I had that warm, heavy feeling of being on vacation and just wanting to nap.

I had (naively) booked the session right before I needed to pick my kid up from school, so napping wasn’t an option. Doh! Instead, I had to sit with my feelings in the school pick-up line: What is causing all the neck tension?

I realized: It was the effing book. Well, not the book, but the frantic orbit around it: Querying agents, writing the proposal, and building a platform.

All of that layered on top of my normal life and my periodic existential depression? It’s a lot. And it’s also largely self-driven. I’m getting caught up in the “achievement” part of my core values, to the detriment of others.

Bottom line: I don’t need to take it so seriously, and so wouldn’t it be more enjoyable if I approached it as a fun, creative project versus a big-time goal I must reach AT ALL COSTS? It will never be as cleansing as a gravity-free float tank, but it certainly doesn’t have to be as grotesque as a sulfuric swamp. Somewhere in the middle, I guess? (Or maybe I need to move away from water metaphors altogether?)

I’m still working on the right visualization for this, so I’d love to hear from you: How do you approach long, difficult goals? How do you keep them from overwhelming everything else? And what do you do once the thing is done, to help mitigate the arrival fallacy?

(Also, sorry-not-sorry if you now have “dance, magic, dance!'“ stuck in your head.)